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Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

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Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#931

Post by tonymet »

raphman wrote: post #466
sedev wrote: post #213

I am going to say a thing I say a lot: please edit Wikipedia. It is easier to do than you probably think! Wikipedia's biggest constraint is no longer money or server space, it's editor time (especially since LLM-based garbage is a force multiplier on disruptive editing that does not have a corresponding improvement to good-faith editing). Any topic area you know about and/or care about can benefit from your attention…

To offer a counter-example to the many anecdotes about being gatekept(?) by veteran Wikipedia editors: I have the opposite experience. I occasionally contribute to various topics, and in many cases experienced editors silently fixed formatting errors I made, allowing me to focus on contributing to Wikipedia without having to keep up with the best practices. I also participated in a deletion discussion once, and - des…

I agree with this as well ( I wrote a critical comment above). I’ve had the most enjoyment fixing typography & typos (aka copy editing). It feels more like a casual (video) game that way.

Some of my edits to technical articles were well received.

You’re right it’s good to highlight the good and bad, but given the amount of goodwill that was burned , the bad did outweigh the good for me.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#932

Post by moritzwarhier »

tim333 wrote: post #858
klntsky wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to contribute to this giant propaganda machine by making it more valuable. Structural problems must be fixed first. "If your solution consists of 'everyone should just X', you don't have a solution"

People say "propaganda machine" but I have yet to see much example of that. The Trumpists don't like it because it fact checks their lies but I'm not sure it's fair to call that propaganda? Any examples like a link to an article or section that you feel is propaganda?

Many people here decry Wikipedia as biased, impossible to edit and other bad things.

But none of the comments point out the actual article that they wanted to edit.

Ironically, presumably to remain anonymous. Anonymity and pseudonymity are directly attacked in the letter this article is about.

Wikipedia sure isn't perfect, but so far, when commenters attack it with fundamental vitriol, I've always found these people to have a political agenda.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#933

Post by tonymet »

teddyh wrote: post #814
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #788

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting how so many people are answering that they've had trouble! How about I look at some of those cases? Especially if it's relatively recent, I can take a look. Leave me a message here, or at my email address (see my HN info) , or on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Kim_Bruning I'm not very active anymore, but I'll check in the next couple of days and see what I can do. Really to be able to help I gene…

> How about I look at some of those cases? Please note that, although there are scores of anecdotes in this thread, precisely none of them link to any examples or give enough details to find them. It’s always like this with Wikipedia detractors; I don’t know why, but it is. Complaints and horror stories galore, but nobody will link to any of it, preventing anybody from investigating what actually happened.

There are a couple of legitimate reasons. Raising the issue internally only brings ire and attention by admins and shadow groups. I tried doing this via the WMF village pump , technical pumps, admin pages and only drew more attacks.

Raising the issues externally comes off as petty, because the “evidence” consists of 50+ pages of inane bickering on talk pages, community post , etc with no clear narrative or verdict. It’s a unique community that leans heavily on hyper-bureaucratic and bespoke debates.

I could share > 5 severe cases that required weeks of effort to “resolve” . It would require nearly as much effort for anyone to draw conclusions from.

There are some index pages of some of the more notable conflicts & debates. If you can indicate that digging that up would be worth my time to help you understand more, I may be willing to help you out.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#934

Post by Avamander »

webstrand wrote: post #300
flask_manager wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have in the past, but three things put me off doing so now; Pages where I can spot inconsistencies are often controversial, with long dense discussion pages, edits here are almost impossible beyond trivial details. I dont mind fixing trivia, but not if the actual improvement I think I can make is rejected. There is a bit of a deletionist crusade to keep some topics small, for example, Ive had interesting trivia abo…

I made an edit last year, it immediately got reverted and I got a banner on my user page for vandalism. I complained about that, other people agreed with me but the person who reverted my edits never responded. So there it sits.

If you revert someone's malicious reverts three times, you'll be forced into arbitration. They rarely bother with that though.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#935

Post by mulmen »

A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 wrote: post #713
mulmen wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physically more difficult. Purging voter rolls. Moving polling locations. Voter ID requirements. Restrictions on mail in ballots. Etc.

I willing to give you moving polling locations, but with that minor concession. Can you explain to me like I am 5 why those are bad things? For a simple person like myself, one would think, data accuracy, voting system integrity, and verifiability would be of use and value to everyone.

Yes, recognizing the full consequences requires second order thinking which by definition is a challenge for the simple minded.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#936

Post by rchaud »

Perenti wrote: post #330
rchaud wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The majority that did vote, voted for this. The participation rate has always been low in rich western countries. Given the standards of media literacy and civics education, there's no evidence that a higher participation rate would have changed the outcome.

Everybody votes in Australia (not sure how rich, but in top 20 for sure). If you don't you have to show cause or pay a AUD$50 fine. I know some think this is anti-freedom, but it does prevent farces like the current USA. Historically there have been problems in the past (30 years ago) but these days the Australian Electoral Commission (Independent from government) revise electoral boundaries to ensure no more gerryma…

Farces occur in the US because it has a 2-party system where the winner takes all, and there is no limit to political funding. In parliamentary systems common in the rest of the West, there is at least a pretence of inter-party cooperations, e.g. forming coalitions to contain the power of the party with the plurality (but not majority) of votes.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#937

Post by zahlman »

teddyh wrote: post #914
zahlman wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>although there are scores of anecdotes in this thread, precisely none of them link to any examples or give enough details to find them In the past, when I've tried to keep receipts on this sort of thing (which requires an extraordinary amount of effort, and is often only possible if you've anticipated that there would be a need to do so - since content is often deleted or archived without warning, and nobody ever en…

If the evidence has merely been “archived”, it would still be possible to find and link to, no? And even if, as you say, all the evidence has been completely deleted, an honest critique would at least point out the exact article in question, and summarize the details of the attempted changes. But all the criticism in this thread (and elsewhere) always lack this. It is a mystery.

Finding things again is a lot of work. There's similarly "always" this selective demand for rigor that faces complainants such as myself. I don't owe you my time. Often these complaints are motivated by recollections of years-old incidents - sometimes by many such incidents.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#938

Post by insane_dreamer »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #901
CommenterPerson wrote: post #740

Let's remove nonprofit status from all churches. Because they are involved in politics

The US government cannot tax churches because of the first amendment. So they have a bit of a stronger claim than Wikipedia.

1A has nothing to do with tax status.

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#939

Post by insane_dreamer »

Wikipedia has its share of issues, and anything political/controversial is never going to be perfectly balanced and there will always be a tug of war over content and complaints from all sides. I tend to stay away from articles on highly politicized people/topics.

But having an independent (not ad-driven therefore not subject to corporations), transparent (you can see edit history and authors), and funded by its users, is an amazing accomplishment and a great boon to mankind. One of the best sites on the internet.

Independent sources of information are a threat to autocrats and dictators, so it's no surprise that the Trump admin would attempt to kill Wikipedia or reduce its influence (and no better way than to hit its tax status and therefore reduce donations to it).

Re: Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

#940

Post by dyauspitr »

guywithahat wrote: post #785
CommenterPerson wrote: post #740

Let's remove nonprofit status from all churches. Because they are involved in politics

Are they though? I’ve seen people make this claim but I’ve never seen them coherently defend it outside of a rouge priest

Pretty much every evangelical church is heavily political.
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